was. surprised previous c.e.o. of switch spanx may soon fall victim to the e.u. tax fraud hunt as finance ministers attempt to impose the union's data sharing rules on nonmembers states. the diplomatic marathon over syria continues to meet concern it may be hampered by some countries unstinting backing for the rebels i despised it to stick suggesting the support directly leads to more deaths. i mean a wave of violence in iraq many people there are forced to battle with daily shortages of drinking water and other basic services and one of the most oil rich nations on the planet.

it is just after eight am here in the russian capital i'm rory sushi live on our t.v. with your world wide news good morning to. switzerland cherished banking secrecy is under threat in the ongoing battle against tax evasion e.u. finance ministers have agreed to put pressure on the nonmember nation to share its banking data with the union and swiss banks on the only ones who may have to sacrifice the previous c.e.o. of some of the world's wealthiest people ati's katie pilbeam has this report so what do we know about switzerland that while the mountainous country sells tasty chocolates is home to some of the finest watches and it's a great place to ski but when it comes its banking set so well that's when it also is getting a little bit secretive avenue the hundred years this secrecy attracted some of the world's mega rich to the country. now to qualify for the flat rate tax deal or not

for the rich are not actually allowed to work in the country but must have a net world of at least two million dollars and this isn't has attracted more than five thousand affluent x. patches to this nation of only eight million people including. twain but well they are foreigners collectively give seven hundred million dollars in federal and local taxes maybe it is that could be going into their homeland treasuries this cozier agent may soon be a thing of the passes the e.u. caps down no such juicy tax incentives the e.u. is also piling pressure on members luxembourg and austria as well as license sign san marino and dora and monaco which rushing not members of the union now luxembourg recently changed just last month that actually agreeing to lift bank

secrecy rules for european union citizens who have savings that so what all these tax haven countries actually expected to do that well quite simply expose the e.u. want to be able to check out bank tea towels of any individual whenever they want without requesting permission first and considering in cyprus the banks are worth seven times as much as the country's g.d.p. lots about for example they're worth twenty two times more the situation could be catastrophic than if you put it in that way so in a wall where banking secrets are no longer kept these havens may have to find another way to seduce the bridge. right there now that you use one for tax evaders has already resulted in several scandals involving top politicians and businessmen and as i. reports the current push for a lifting of bank secrecy could shine the light on an awful lot more shady. because

of this increased efforts from e.u. leaders and the pressure being piled on them there have been a couple of scandals that had a recession over here one of them in france which involves general he's a former budget minister who had had to step down from his position because he had lied about having an offshore account and is also under investigation for possible tax fraud now over in germany another prominent figure who was the boss of one of the world's biggest football clubs byron munich also admitted to being involved in tax fraud and is under investigation so as efforts to increase among leaders we could possibly expect some more big names to come out as such now also recently we know that there has been a massive leak of data to the international consortium for investigative journalists now this data includes the name of some of the world's wealthiest people the politicians all the guards very public figures which reveal a lot of their wealth parked in various offshore accounts in the world no

journalists have been sifting through this information but so have governments including the british and the american governments leading to some sort of a global effort which is precisely what the e.u. wants to lead to they really want to make this a global exchange of relevant banking data as they say so as we have seen them really impose strongly on cyprus so we can expect some political pressure to be piled on the likes of switzerland and liechtenstein as they start these talks and as leaders try to find ways to bring back some of that money to deal with the crisis that there is. in the meantime investor jim rogers he told my colleague bill dawe the perhaps instead of trying to crack tax havens. simply address the real problems like their own unchecked spending habits. it's a shame that the politicians don't say gosh we made mistakes why don't we solve the problems ourselves what they're doing is they're trying to grab more money from

their own citizens some of them may not be innocent citizens i certainly agree and they should be paying their taxes but there's a heightened awareness now because all of these countries have huge deficits but instead of cutting their spending and cutting the deficit is what they're now doing is spending all this money trying to order other people around to help them collect more money but i'll ask you about tax evasion those that really the cause of europe's financial problems no it's not the problem with with europe europe's got a gigantic spending problem and you think all these countries are going down the tubes because of tax evasion no they're going down the tubes because politicians keep spending money they don't have to keep making promises to spend money to people that need money or that it has from money no it's massive deficit spending that's where they should be addressing things that's the real problem in europe and that's what they should be trying to do something about. thank you for joining us here on r.t. today the recent flurry of diplomatic efforts to end the violence in syria sees the

u.n. chief meet the russian president on friday a lot of person has already held talks with the u.s. secretary of state and the british and israeli leaders. going off has been following all the discussion now joining us live from russia's black sea resort of sochi good morning to you so a diplomatic marathon any results to speak on. the u.n. secretary general is already in and like you said he is ready to meet with both russia's foreign minister and the president continuing this diplomatic marathon with been witnessing since earlier russia was visited by u.s. secretary of state and british and israeli prime ministers and other officials about syria dominating the talks and perhaps we're now witnessing a shift in the approach by many nations to the situation since they're now talking about putting together this joint conference which would include both of the syrian

rebels and the saudis however several stumbling blocks still remain and for him to russia's foreign minister to go off the syrian opposition is still a very divided and it's unclear right now who can represent it as a whole at this conference and also secondly the rebels are still voicing preconditions. because it's. in contrast to the syrian government which has responded quite positively to the russian american initiative the opposition zones that was quite vague they said that they welcome any initiatives that will help stop the violence but before that assad must go reiterating their stance which has been the cause of the deadlock for many months. well there is also another problem with the united states when the u.s. secretary of state john kerry was in russia they were on the same piece with moscow but it soon as you out here again called for president assad to step down and promised to increase the support of the rebels something which was recently backed

by president obama so there are definitely things to talk about before the u.n. secretary general here in sort of course we'll be keeping you updated throughout the day right r.t. correspondent you've got this going to thank you. for plans for a peace conference on syria backed by moscow and washington are certainly in contrast to the latest u.n. resolution sponsored by arab states the document clearly favors the opposition despite recent evidence of atrocities committed by rebel groups it also ignores the statistics suggesting that when anti regime supporters get international help the death toll spikes to farm reports. this week russia curtis size the un general assembly resolution on syria saying it was a one sided text which condemned president assad's regime without leveling blame on opposition forces who are also being accused of atrocities verifying evidence is difficult but there's been a surge in videos posted online that appear to show brutality by both sides this is

among the latest members of the syrian opposition executing eleven government troops it took place in the city of day i'll saw in the northeast of the country and a few days earlier these shocking images were released a syrian rebel fighter seemingly cuts out the heart and lung of a dead uniformed soldier and that was even condemned by the syrian opposition but fail to draw strong criticism from the un general assembly some analysts say it demonstrates the u.n. selective stance on the conflict the u.n. resolution also expressed the rapidly increasing death toll it is estimated eighty thousand people have been killed so far. in syria but let's look at the statistics in more detail provided by activists creech they argue the death toll paid twenty gold states and the u.s. sent more weapons to the region then fell when limited before increasing once again when more weapons were supplied and maybe

a simple correlation but nonetheless suggests arming the syrian opposition may be causing more bloodshed and certainly disturbing statistics right there. for you still ahead for you though here on the program the u.s. just won't let go of the prospering and independent bit coin cyber currency has a worried u.s. government building a wall of bureaucracy we look at why here at plus the guantanamo bay hunger strike goes past the one hundred day mark but a daily dose of torture continues to look far more likely than a fair trial over least for the detainees. is it turning into an overblown scandal or a reflection of a foreign policy poorly thought out and executed the terrorist attack on the american diplomatic outpost in benghazi last september has become a political football to attack the obama administration and hillary clinton mistakes were made but is the proper focus on the most the breaches ones.

real damage and complexity of this oil spill is not something you just by looking at dirty birds we have between four to five million people in this directly affected area of the coast. it's pretty clear why it's not being reported because b.p. can't afford to have a reported all along the gulf coast are clean they are safe and they're open for business if b.p. is the single largest oil contributor to the pentagon the u.s. war machine is heavily reliant upon b.p. and their oil this is a huge step backwards for the market. it's a step forward. carex it is toxic as it looked like spray. it was it was not a picture that either the government or b.p. really wanted to have out there i don't want dispersants to be the agent. of

this. this is auty with me rule received iraq is in the grip of violence and the latest suicide bombing played claimed at least twenty five lives in the northern city of kut a cook at the suffering is made worse by crippled infrastructure and shortages of electricity and drinking water lucy cuffing off now looks at why one of the world's most oil rich nations still lacks basic services ten years after saddam hussein. it is the land between twin rivers ancient day mesopotamia modern day iraq and in baghdad there's no shortage of ways in which water is used to wash cars to clean shop fronts to store freshly caught fish before their gutted for sale everything it

seems except drinking it personally nobody drinks the city will to because we know it's not clean since my wife had to lie on the books on what comes out of its happens contaminated and makes us sick how can we dream can't. water is just one of the many services that still lagging and post-war iraq despite years of promises and billions of dollars spent on reconstruction many neighborhoods lack sewage systems there's no trash collection in some settlements there are barely any streets iraq's central power is sometimes on for as little as two hours a day this mess of wires is a common scene all across iraq it connects homes to private generators people have to buy electricity to cope with the hours of daily blackouts ten years after the war it's a symbol for much of what's wrong with the wrong approach going infrastructure and reliable services and a tangled web of a walker sea and corruption. i don't want it the energy crisis has

meant more work for album area and electrician who says he now runs about four times as much as he did before the war the green shingles and browns are frequent but he says the government is simply not serious about fixing it. it's the citizens who suffer in the end not the government the services are so bad the power system has really deteriorated there were billions spent on fixing the grid but there's little to show for it. the government has promised improvements in public services but officials say it's a monumental task the infrastructure has been put to the neglected and of the previous games and the damage is enormous there is a need to rebuild everything and that requires tens of billions of dollars but the dollars are flowing along with and largely because of the oil that's what accounts for most of the revenue in iraq's one hundred nineteen billion dollar budget here at the college we're flying reproduction more than doubled in the here and that that won't even higher oil industry have been counted as one of the few bright

spots that country that has been plagued by violence and the rampant corruption transparency international ranks iraq as the most corrupt country in the world which in part helps to explain why services are still lagging most of the reconstruction money was squandered through fraud and abuse just one example the government awarded one point seven billion dollars worth of fake electricity contracts it's a paradox that frustrates many iraqis theirs is one of the wealthiest pieces of land on earth but its people are some of the poorest. nowhere is that contrast more stark than here the landfill on the edge of baghdad many of the families living here have been displaced by the war but now they're waging a daily battle just to survive services are simply nonexistent are the conditions a horrible there are no schools for the kids here no electricity no real houses to get a drink of water we have to. travel for columbus's it's very difficult to live here

for now they must remain among the refuse uncertain like the rest of iraq as to what will come on the winds of change lucie county r t baghdad iraq i will get to the r.t. world update shortly here on the program for now the u.s. authorities have frozen the account of the world's largest bit to coin exchange words helps to move customers cash online and the booming digital currency has had bureaucratic blocks ever since its rapid growth came to the attention of the government parties marina portnoy has this report the us government has made no secret of the. i on the point but now it appears that the close eye includes a crackdown on the decentralized digital currency the department of homeland security sees the company known as to wallop which allows us to merge to transfer their us dollars into points on tuesday washington shut down while his ability to process point payments now the u.s.

warrant alleges that the iowa base company was operating as an on the license money transmitting business because to wallow wasn't registered with the with the department of treasury is financial crimes enforcement network now some economists believe the timing of this case is no please and see the popularity and press surrounding that point is skyrocketing and the use of electronic currency is growing more appealing to investors and customers around the world this of course threatens the long held grip that governments and banks have had on currency regulation and interest rate manipulation this new york city bars last restaurant behind to be known as ever again except a big point last month so far the midtown business has reportedly processed more than twenty thousand dollars worth of transactions in the morning now while wall street remains less than eight kilometers away from here the financial industry to

its disappointment is far removed from the way in which the business of the morning is operating according to new york very important time r.t. . so why is the u.s. government so worried about the independent currency the bitcoin concept was first floated back in two thousand and eight the idea was for users to avoid traditional banking procedures by connecting directly with each other and the currency came to life in two thousand and nine after the first client software appeared the number of clients has certainly grown rapidly a bit coin usage reaches record high in april and its subsequent decline is partly put down to pressure from red tape and r.t. spoke to journalists. he believes the u.s. doesn't want control to slip out of its hands. since one thousand nine hundred seventy one when the u.s. came off the gold standard the dollar hasn't been linked to gold it has meaning to anything if you have a piece of paper you know it says in god we trust on it but she's in the government

we trust that piece of paper it's absolutely meaningless you're putting your trust into banks and central authority is a big point is a whole new idea of money where the money is basically regulated by network and by people and i think that with people kind of losing trusting governments they the idea of something like that coin is really gaining in popularity and people are beginning to realize what a actually all these dollars in my pocket then they're no more real as a currency than something like. of course so many more stories and videos for you online at all to dot com including a medical breakthrough new technology allow scientists to harvest stem cells from cloned human embryos opening completely new horizons and treating red diseases though it's not without controversy we tell you why it are two dot com. for you this hour right now from background checks on internet dates to tattoo tips u.k. consulates around the world reveal the weirdest inquiries from citizens abroad to

learn what else is on the request list on our web site. today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying for asians to rule the day. nearly time for a break in the search for now though the data starting with. one of the boston marathon bombing suspects he reportedly left a note claiming responsibility for the attack. he wrote it while on the run from police saying the blasts were venues for the u.s. wars in iraq and afghanistan and that he hoped to meet his brother in paradise is older brother tamerlan was killed during a gunfight with police three people were killed and more than two hundred fifty

injured in two explosions near the finish line of the boston. to bolivia now where miners teachers health service workers and university stars have again clashed with police during a general strike and now union members from the police force itself threatened to join the protesters and so far strikers have detonated dynamite in the capital parts and blocked roads the biggest union countries demanding a pension valued valued worth one hundred percent of a worker's salary. now of course or prisoners at guantanamo bay say the vast majority of them are on hunger strike and the protest has now passed the one hundred day mark and a third of the strikers are being force fed which some international bodies say is tantamount to torture of detainees say they simply want a fair trial to be set free the explanation to azziz guy in a chicken. after years of injustice and indifference and

after more than three months of starvation autonomy detainees have finally got the president's attention i'm going to go back apis they've heard these words before as president i will close guantanamo reject the military commissions act and if you go to the g. it needs to be closed now congress and again as many times before the white house if it were sponsibility to congress there's much he can do administratively without congress without having a legislative act even under current restrictions the administration has the power to use national security waivers to release many of these men which it hasn't used it's the charge that well the fear that if you release some of these prisoners that have been accused of being terrorist in the past and and they do something else or you find them going into terrorist

organizations you will pay a heavy political price for that so many of these men have fallen victim not just to their wrongful capture but also to u.s. politicians assumptions of what they may or may not do in the future but you can't you can't invoke people to maybe you know this is we're not future police here so far the administration's only response to the crisis of course carnival has been to force feeding troops down detainees nostrils the fact of the matter is that when an individual makes a decision of sound mind makes a decision to refuse food as a political protest then as we said in our joint statement it is not open to the states in a second chance to force them to do each. and the full speeding here involves the insertion of a tube of some significant down on the diameter through the nasal passages and into the stomach in the most horrible of circumstances the un special rapporteur on human rights also told me that he was encouraged to hear the president once again express commitment. close the infamous prison president. one time was

a problem on the ground for some reason the ministration continues to treat these men in humanely and to deny their basic dignity for years the administration is in gauged in verbal and legal acrobatics to justify its inaction on guantanamo and still not clear how long before people there start dying but one thing is clear the elephant in the room just will big to ignore in washington i'm going to shut down. detainees conditions are being made worse by water deprivation and isolation in cold cells but lawyers say the methods only work to reinforce the inmates determination here are two we spoke to burke he was detained at the prison he believes years of isolation are more torturous than the abuse itself you have to remember that these people have gone through these people who control whole series of different types of prisons from being in a in a prison massacre genki from being in kandahar where people tortured to death to

guantanamo is camp x. ray where they were in chicken wire for intense is to camp delta to now comes five six and seven so it has changed it's been a progression and the steady and rapid. eating away the erosion of the personal psyche has taken its toll so if at the end of this process now they put them into a decent prison with some decent living standards it doesn't take away from the fact of the past eleven years the torture the use and everything else becomes peripheral after they then it's a strange situation where torture is peripheral where force feeding is peripheral where the fact that you've not had meaningful communication with your family is peripheral the fact that you were sexually abused and when you were searched every time your lawyer comes and nothing can be more exaggerated than hearing that your child who you've never seen in your life is now going to be eleven years old that's not exaggerated that's the truth that nobody wants to face up to. another person that force. feeding is legal necessary despite human rights activists calling for

it to be stopped dr stevens and retired brigadier general and medical officer he says ultimately even force feeding one prevent the deaths of some inmates if indeed the protest goes on much longer. i think we're going to sadly tragically we're going to see some deaths the main these men have you know been in detention now eleven years or so a number of got medical conditions they've aged they have you know they're not they're not all that healthy and when you've got over a hundred at least of the hundred sixty six. got some medical problems i think it's going to be sad but i think we're going to see that some of them are going to die is a medical officer in the united states military is one obligated to follow orders in terms of things that they may find that they might find morally questionable no i mean they're not and i think it's a tough choice and it may mean that the military physician risks his career or

risks you know any advancement but they're not they are clearly in fact expected not to in any way defy or violate what they feel are their professional principles and ethics or in fact to obey and order that they consider illegal. and here it ought to be we continue to follow the hunger strike on air and online a full account of the situation is available on a website called that will be including a comments from prison officials detainees attorneys and activists of course all the latest updates as well that dot com. why would it's good to have you with us here on the program today just a moment abby martin breaking the set thank you for joining us.

more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. china operations to rule the day.